Nov 20 Having the Authority

Ever since Barack Obama began his run for the Presidency there has been a challenge to his authority to do so. The first controversy was the authenticity of his Birth Certificate. More recently was the questioning by the press after his speech at the G20 summit. Several members of the press asked the President a very similar question about his strategy in Syria. Underneath the words of the questions that were being asked was another question which was "When will you be willing to admit that you are and have been a complete and total failure". Since they weren't getting the answer they wanted they had to keep asking the same question.

Since President Obama has been in office there has been a nonstop attack on his authority. No matter what he says or what he does his authority is questioned. President Obama was elected through the Democratic process after which he took the Oath of Office making him the 44th President of the United States which therefore grants him with the authority given to the office of the Presidency. With that authority he has been given the opportunity to understand and utilize the authority that has been granted to him.

Right after President Obama was elected a neighbor of mine who was in his later seventies then and is now deceased said to me in relationship to the election, "I can't believe this happened in my country". When he said this his body was slumped and he had a sense of great sorrow, pain and loss in his voice. In his world the election of Barack Obama was as a death. This has not been the case in his world alone but also in the world of most on the right in this country and also many on the left.

To the people who are like my neighbor this President's authority must be challenged because his very existence is a threat to the survival of their belief system. He is a nail in their coffin. They are compelled to challenge the authority of everything this President does and everything that he says because the bottom line is that they object to the possibility that he should be allowed to have any authority. They know and they see that with the use of his authority he is working towards the creation and construction of a world that strips them of their old idea of authority, one in which a man like Barack Obama would be kept from having any authority.

In that G20 summit press conference three people asked the President an almost identical question that had the intention of challenging his authority and the President answered all of them in a respectful, thoughtful, articulate and intelligent manor. Whenever the President is questioned he responds in a respectful, thoughtful, articulate and intelligent manor. His answers as well as his policies are reality based. He utilizes his authority in the realm of reality.

As he continues to be attacked and to have his authority put into question he continues to respond in the same reality based and educational manor and by doing so he causes his detractors to react and in their reaction they participate in endorsing ideas and policies that appear more and more outside the realm of reality. By the use of his authority President Obama is drawing a contrast between his ideas and the ideas of his detractors and making it clear who is living in reality and who is living in a fantasy. By the use of his authority he is causing his detractors to say and do things that seem to be borderline if not outright insane.

President Obama is using his authority to meet the needs of a changing world. Those who are fighting this authority are of the past. Their old authority was exclusive. The new authority which President Obama represents is inclusive. The old authority has no ideas to address a changing world because those ideas are from the past. Those ideas are in a state of decay. The old authority is in denial which is causing those who identify with it to act out and behave like unruly little children who are yelling and screaming for attention rebelling against the grownup. In reality they are afraid. They are afraid of their loss of power.

As painful as it has been for those who support this President to observe the treatment he has received I think it is important to stand back and look at the bigger picture. The way this President has been using his authority is powerful. President Obama has not folded under the never ending pressure that has been seeking to destroy him and by not folding and instead using his authority what he has done is draw a line in the sand and he asked us to question do we want to evolve or do we want to rot in the decay of the past? The answer to any thinking person is clear and he is helping to clarify the answer to that question with each passing day. President Obama has been using his authority to both construct something and also to abolish something. President Obama is creating a new template. His use of authority is the representative of a new beginning and due to his election and through his actions we are closing the door to the past.